Monsters' Den: Book of Dread
is a dungeon-crawler RPG in the Rogue-like genre. It is the sequel to Monsters' Den. The game has endless randomized dungeon floors. __TOC__ Gameplay The game is a turn-based dungeon crawler Role Playing Game with endless levels. At the start of the game, you choose your party of four characters which you will keep for the duration of the game. You choose between three different campaigns with three different difficulties. Afterwards, you descend into an endless dungeon where every floor is randomized. The game frequently autosaves, so don't worry about taking breaks. There are three different Campaigns in the game called The Den of Corruption, The Den of Terror and The Fall of Telunos. The two first campaigns are Dungeon Crawlers similar to the gameplay in the first game. They can be played on Beginner, Standard or Extreme difficulty. The Fall of Telunos is a survival mode. The first time you enter battle, make sure you drag your team members to appropriate positions. When a character's turn comes around, his or her portrait will be highlighted, and you can simply click on a creature within range to attack it. You can use special abilities, such as healing spells or special attacks, from the grid on the left by clicking on the ability and then on its target. Party Your party consists of 4 party members. Each of them can be one of seven classes; Warrior, Cleric, Mage, Ranger, Rogue, Barbarian or Conjuror. Each class has a different set of skills and can wear different armor. Before each battle, you arrange your characters on a 2x3 grid. Characters in the front row can attack an enemy in the square in front of them or in an adjacent square. Ranged characters can attack anyone from the back row. The game does not use experience points to determine the characters' levels. Instead, characters gain Skill points and Stat points when you descend down to a new dungeon level. Skill points can be used to gain new skills or upgrade your existing skills. You can only equip six active skills on each character, so you have to choose which skills to bring to battle. Each character also has two passive skills which are always active. Enemies As expected for a game with "Monsters" in the title, Monsters' Den: Book of Dread has a wide variety of enemies for players to contend with. Enemies can be separated into several categories, with most floors featuring representatives from a single category (with some exceptions). Undead The first enemy type encountered in the game, the Undead ranks have many different tactics to use against the player's party. As a general rule, they are vulnerable to certain abilities of the Cleric, such as Smite and Holy Light. *'Skeleton: '''Regenerates health *'Undead Archer: Regenerates health, can use ranged attack *'Vampire: '''Drains health, can use ranged attack *'Wraith: 'Highly resistant to physical attacks, ignores armor when attacking. Can curse targets while draining their power and hide itself to restore health and avoid being targeted directly. *'Lich: 'Ranged attack, skills of damaging entire enemies may cause poison or stun. *'Bone Horror: 'Regenerates health and reflects damage. *'Fallen Knight (boss): 'Can restores health and buffs damage to the entire team. *'Arch-Lich (boss): 'Sacrifices allies for health and power regeneration or forces the players to target a certain enemy for one turn. Deep Creatures The monsters in this category are a varied bunch, including reptiles, mammals, arthropods, and more. They attempt to overwhelm players by attacking from all sides, using negative status effects (mainly poison) to wear them down, and evasive abilities to strike more vulnerable targets in the back row. *'Greebler: Inflicts poison with its attacks; can use ranged attack *'Arachnoid:' Blinds and slows players with its webs *'Gargoyle:' Extremely high defense, but low HP. Attacks from range; can give itself Defiant status and restore most of its HP for one turn. *'Storm Drake:' Can attack from range or hit multiple players with a Lightning Arc. *'Poison Drake:' Can poison and blind the party with Venomous Cloud or badly poison one target with its Venom Spit. *'Basilisk:' Stuns its targets with its attacks, or Stuns the front row at once with its Petrify skill. *'Dragon (boss):' Attacks the front row with Tail Swipe or hits a cross-shaped area with its Flame Breath. *'Beholder (boss):' Inflicts massive damage to single targets with Disintegrate. Recharges its power by draining players with Drain Life and sacrificing its own health with Channel. Greenskins A savage tribe of orcs, goblins, and trolls. Heavily focused on damage output, with most of their number having means to strike multiple targets per turn - however, they can occasionally end up catching themselves in the crossfire. *'Orc Berserker:' Attacks twice per turn. *'Orc Savage:' Attacks twice per turn or throws a strong but inaccurate axe at range. *'Goblin Artificer:' Attacks twice at range or throws a Grenade to hit everyone in a cross-shaped pattern from the target. *'Orc Champion:' Can issue a Challenge to the party, preventing them from directly targeting its allies for a turn. Has slight armor. *'Orc Shaman:' Heals allies and curses enemies. Can attack at melee when alone. *'Troll:' Regenerates health. Slow and inaccurate, but powerful and able to hit two people in the same column with Spear Thrust. *'Half-Troll (boss):' Regenerates health. Can attack savagely (hits twice), cleave the front row of the party, or unleash a Howl of Rage to drain power and stun the party. *'Orc Warlord (boss):' Uses Battle Plan to raise the speed and defense of its allies while reviving the fallen with Reinforce. Attacks at melee if alone. Humans These enemies belong to the Cult of the Outward Path, a group of madmen and fanatics seeking to gain power by manipulating other dimensions. In battle, they generally try to wear the party down through attrition, buffing themselves, debuffing their opponents, and summoning powerful monsters from another plane to assist them. *'Neophyte: '''Sacrifices itself to summon an Aetherguard. *'Aetherguard: Resistant to physical attacks, can shoot bolts that can cause splash damage *'Acolyte: '''Heals allies, attacks from range, occasionally summons Voidstalkers. *'Voidstalker: Resistant to physical attacks, ranged attacks may reduces target's accuracy *'Protector: '''Uses ranged attacks, including Draining Shot (which takes some of the target's power as well as their health). Armored. *'Guardian: Can stun targets with Impact. Armored. *'Chosen: '''Can stun targets with Impact and cast Sever to block the party's power regeneration for 4 turns. Armored. *'Nexus Engine (boss): 'A heavily-armored foe immune against stun, instant kill and poison. Cleaves the front row and blasts columns with Void Cannon. *'Ascended Human (boss): 'Supports allies by buffing quickness, accuracy and damage resistance. Attacks from range and regenerates health. Dwarves A new group of enemies introduced to ''Monsters' Den: Book of Dread (after defeating level 10). Living among so many other savage beasts has made the Dwarves fierce warriors who fight first and ask questions later. From the Earthern Nation and with their expert forging techniques, runic magic, and more than a little alcohol, they seek victory through brute force and various auguments to their own abilities, although they are also proficient at stunning players and debuffing their attack power. All Dwarves can drink a mug of Dwarven Ale once per battle, healing a lot of health and raising their armor slightly, but sacrificing some accuracy in the process. All Dwarves are also naturally resistant to stun and poison effects. *'Dwarf Maniac: '''Reckless warrior that charges at targets in the back row for increased damage and a high chance to stun. Dwarf Maniacs themselves are invulnerable to stun as well. *'Dwarf Warrior: 'Heavily armored and capable of delivering Punishing Blows that decrease the target's ability to fight back. *'Crossbowman: 'Ranged attacks that ignore armor protection. *'Runecaster: 'Supporting spell caster that bestows group buffs to damage output and damage reduction. *'Dwarf Veteran: Tough soldier that regenerates its wounds. Can stun multiple targets with its hammer. *'Battleforger (boss):' Warlord clad in the best armor available to the Dwarven Nations. Capable of cleaving through the front row with his massive axe or buffing his troops' speed with Onslaught. *'Mountain Prince (boss):' Forces the players to target a certain minion for one turn, or prevents an injured minion from dying from the damage it takes (i.e. gives the Defiance ability to a minion). Demons The source of the evil plaguing the world of Monsters' Den, powerful abominations from another realm with a variety of deadly abilities. Usually, they appear among groups of other monsters - it is implied that their fearsome presence is enough to make entire categories of other enemies set aside their differences and work together. Defeating the demons requires great power, skill, and courage, but they often provide tremendous rewards. *'Fearsower: '''Harbingers of the Dreadfather. They accompany groups of standard monsters, assisting them by spreading disorder and chaos in their enemies' ranks. Capable of Instilling Fear in a target (stuns + reduces target Quickness by 100) and casting Wither on a single target (preventing health and power regeneration for 3 turns). The first 9 Fearsowers you kill will drop a Glowing Stone Fragment; 9 of these fragments form a Journeyman's Stone that can be used to teleport the party to the Dreadfather's lair. *'Dreadfather (boss): Steals life from an enemy. Also capable of reviving the retinue of 3 Fearsowers that accompany it once all 3 are dead. *'''The Corruptor (boss): Creates dark copies of the player party with Dark Mirror, attack twice with Demonic Rage, and drains health/power with Steal Soul. Legendary Creatures Among the rarest of all enemies in the game, these enemies appear rarely on random floors. Although fought alone, their might still makes for a difficult battle - specialized preparations may be necessary before the party can hope to survive against them. *'Minotaur:' Attacks with basic melee strikes and occasional Cleaves. Always begins the battle with Labyrinth, which randomly shuffles the player party to random positions. *'Gorgon:' Stuns the party with Petrify and poisons them with Nest of Vipers. Occassionally attacks normally. *'Hydra Head:' Attacks at range. Spawned by the Hydra. *'Hydra:' Regenerates health. Summons two Hydra Heads whenever one dies. Glossary For Equipments You will always see the name of the equipment when collected in a chest or fighting monsters. The name is not just for show - it gives a effect for the equipment. P.S: There some jewellery materials, like Gold, Platinum, Crystalline and Obsidian. However, their functions is still not confirmed, for now. There are also some names that you ''do not want ''to have as an equipment. These names are: Dented, Battered, Notched, Threadbare, Warped, Tattered, Patched, Cracked, Worn, Rusty, Bent. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ Orbs is an accessory that can be equipped to your equipment, they can only be used once, so use it wisely. _______________________________________________________________________________________________ All equipments have their own rarity. They are classified with different colors. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ Like every other games that require some violence, you need weapons to attack the enemy and armor to protect your units from death. Both weapons are also classified for your units. Note: If the melee weapon is two-handed, you can't use the offhand slot. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ Lastly, there are accesories that can be used for your units. They can be classifed by rarity, so they also have additional properties attached with their initial property Consumable Items You can't always rely in your equipments and skills alone, especially in the early levels. Luckily, consumable can be obtained and save you a lot in danger. Unluckily, they can't be used in battle, so use them when you are '''really '''in danger of being defeated. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ Although there are only two scrolls in the game, both of them are very useful in their own ways. 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